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SAP HANA Viewed with OLAP inside of BI Launchpad

Inside of the SAP BI 4.x Platform there is now the ability to view analytic and calculated views from SAP HANA directly with OLAP connection. In turn, these OLAP connections can be consumed with Analysis inside of the BI launch pad. These are not your parents OLAP Connections. They are not just reserved for BW Bex Queries anymore.

Let’s take a look at an example.

First, log into your SAP HANA Studio and identify a calculated view that you would like to consume inside of the BI Launchpad.

For this example, we will use the calculated view highlighted above (CV_TOP_MONEY).

Next, we will need to log into our Central Management Console and create an OLAP connection.

(HINT: This connection can also be created inside of the Information Design Tool if you have the BI Client Tools installed)

After logging into the CMC, click on the OLAP Connections icon on the left hand side and identify a folder to add your OLAP connection.

After identifying a folder, input SAP HANA credentials and then connect to identify appropriate views to align with the OLAP Connection. Make sure to name the connection similar to the name of the view in SAP HANA to avoid confusion.

Select the appropriate calculated view and save and close. You will notice that the list of views should be the same list of views that were inside of your SAH HANA Studio.

Make sure your connection is properly saved in the OLAP connections folder inside of the CMC.

Log into your BI Launchpad portal and open up the Analysis application.

Once Analysis is launched, you will be prompted to consume an OLAP connection to be viewed inside of the BI Launchpad. Choose the same connection that you created inside of the CMC.

Once you’ve selected your connection and clicked ‘OK’, you should be good to go.

You are now ready to slice and dice your SAP HANA view inside of the BI Launchpad using Analysis. The benefit here is you have the ability to expose queries to users without the need for any client tools installed on their machines and they can be shared in the same locations as Crystal Reports, Dashboards, and Web Intelligence Reports.